


Paint Outside the Lines

by VerbenaHA



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Face Painting, M/M, Modern AU, tattoo parlor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3718306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbenaHA/pseuds/VerbenaHA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You work at the tattoo parlor.” Levi looks back up. The teacher is smiling down at him and Levi simply nods once. “Yes, I saw your portfolio."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint Outside the Lines

Cotton candy, blow-up water slides, lots and lots of bare feet mingling in the scent of sunscreen and pollen. It’s the last day of school, and the sounds of little kids playing and fighting has been ringing around the school yard all morning. Levi swats at a mosquito buzzing around his ear and wipes down the face-painting table for the seventh time. Looking around, he can see his cousins weaving between booths and amusement rides with about seven other little kids.

“I’m sorry, but have we met before?” Levi looks up. One of the teachers has walked up to his booth. Levi does not remember his face from anywhere.

“Uh, no, probably not,” he says.

“No, I’m sure I have, it’s uncanny…” Suddenly he snaps his fingers; “You work at the tattoo parlor.” Levi looks back up. The teacher is smiling down at him and Levi simply nods once. “Yes, I saw your portfolio. I—”

“Mr. Smith?” one of the little kids has run up to them. Levi painted a pink magnolia on her cheek an hour ago and it’s already smeared from her various trips down the water slides.

“Yes, Isabel?” Smith asks.

“Are you going to get your face painted?” she asks.

“Something like that, but in a little bit,” he replies. “Can you let me talk to this young man for a minute?”

“His name is Levi,” she says, looking between them both. Levi nods at her and she patters off through the grass.

“Is she yours?” Smith asks.

“My cousins; Isabel and Farlan.” He gestures to where Isabel has met up with another boy. “I’m really only here for them.”

“Please tell me you’re being paid for this…” Smith says, looking apologetic. Levi shakes his head, but nods to a tip jar on the table. “Weren’t there others with you earlier?”

“They took their tips and left already.” The majority of kids wanting to participate in the face painting were already helped by the other volunteers. There is still a half hour left before the school faculty begins packing up the festivities and Levi is the only face painter left. Along with the cotton candy stand, a few game booths and a photographer, there isn’t much left to do. A handful of the youngest students are trying to convince their parents to get face paintings too.

“So it’s just you, huh? More business for you then,” Smith says. He sits down in the chair opposite Levi and inspects a brochure with different painting options in it. Simple things like daisies, footballs, and the occasional butterfly.

“What were you saying earlier about my portfolio?” Levi asks.

“I had been looking through it at the parlor. Actually, I picked up your card at the studio and left you a message—”

Suddenly, Levi recognizes Smith’s voice.

“Right! You… yeah,” Levi says. He wipes sweat from his forehead without thinking about it, feeling caught. “I was actually going to call you back after this.” He looks around the school yard at the little kids. “You’re a… school teacher?”

“And you’re a face painter?” Smith says. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see what you can do.” He pulls a bill from his pocket and sticks it in the jar. Levi feels the need to say something snarky when he sees the number one on the bill, but then he counts the number of zeros after it and decides to keep his mouth shut.

“You said in your message you wanted a pair of wings,” Levi says.

“Yes.” Smith takes his phone from his pocket and pulls up a picture. “There, see? That’s what I want.”

Levi looks at the photo on the screen and whistles low. “That’s some beautiful work,” he says openly. “Do you know who made that?”

“No, whoever it was, they don’t live around here. This is my friend, Mike. It’s… something of a promise we made to each other to get matching tattoos one day. Anyway, he got this one some months back and I’ve been envious ever since.”

“But you’re a school teacher…” Levi says, arching an eyebrow.

“Which is why,” Smith says quietly, “I need mine to be about a third this size.” Levi swallows while he glances from the photo to the hundred dollar tip in the jar.

“It’s the start of summer,” he says. “Are you sure you can’t make a trip up there to see the same artist?”

“I am very sure,” Smith says. Levi opens his paint set, the sound of it attracting attention from children and adults alike.

“Are Izzy and Farlan your students?” Levi asks.

“Isabel is. Bright, but distracted.”

Levi snorts. “Yeah. I know.” He picks up a brush and dips into the blue paint.

“I was told you just moved to town,” Smith says, “From where?”

“New York. Couldn’t afford the rent.”

“That’s a shame, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Levi says. He’s already started the painting on Smith’s wrist. The sun is beating down on his black hair, making sweat fall into his eyes but he’s too focused to wipe it away. “I’m glad to be near my cousins, to be honest. This is a nicer town.”

“Bad for business, I suppose.”

“Not if every school teacher secretly wants tattoos,” Levi says. Erwin chuckles.

Around them, students are keeping a respectable distance, but watching Mr. Smith and Levi with enthusiasm. Levi backs away to clean his brush, selects a different one, and continues the painting in white.

“It’s perfect,” Erwin says suddenly.

“I’m not even done yet.”

“I promise, it looks very good.”

Levi grins a little: “You’re enthusiastic. How long have you wanted a tattoo? Let me ask you that.”

“I always did when I was younger—most of my friends got some. Since I knew I was going to be a teacher I debated it back and forth and just… never got it done.”

“Until?”

“Until I saw Mike’s, and now I’ve decided this is what I want.”

“Well, good,” Levi says. “If you’re sure.” He backs away again to clean, choose, and start again, framing the tiny blue and white wings in green. When he’s finished, he sits back in the chair, ducking his head under the shade of the beach umbrella behind him. He watches Smith raise his hand and inspect the painting.

“If you could make this kind of work with a brush, I’d love to see it done with a needle.”

Levi runs a hand through his hair. “Working in at a school like this, you can’t get it on your wrist, you know.”

“No, no,” Smith agrees. “On my shoulder, same as Mike.”

“What inspired him to get blue and white wings?” Levi asks.

“He said one stands for glory and the other stands for freedom. The green… I’m not sure about the green.”

“You have to know,” Levi says. He leans forward, looking hard at Smith’s face.

“I will ask him,” he replies evenly.

“Erwin, what did you get?” Another teacher has stepped up, staring at Levi. Smith holds up his hand for inspection. “I didn’t see that in the brochure…”

“Honestly, ma’am, I’ll paint whatever the heck you want.” She eyes him levelly. “I mean, I will paint whatever you would like.” She steps away and Levi looks around at the handful of teachers and parents watching him. He feels a burn in his cheeks; self-consciousness. He dives the end of his brushes into the disinfectant and snaps his paint set closed.

“Isabel’s gonna want me to repaint that poor flower on her face before this is over…” he says. He turns to look back at Smith, but he is gone. Levi looks around again and catches sight of him with a group of parents. They smile and laugh while they talk to him. Levi starts wipe down the table.

“Pardon me, are you leaving?” It is another grown up, but this one has a kid with him, holding onto his hand.

“No, sir,” Levi says. “I’ll be here until the end of the day.”

“Well, I’ve been convinced. Think you could paint a bull dog with tiger stripes?”

“A what?”

The man smiles a little. “We have a bulldog at home—”

“But his name is Tiger!” the kid shouts.

“Er… yeah, I can do that,” Levi says. “Where do you want it?”

“Get it on your face, daddy!”

“No, no, honey. My hand is fine.”

By the end of the day, several other grownups stop by Levi’s booth with special requests. Some he can pull off with a flourish, but others take some time while he tries to blend the colors just right using only face paints. A couple times he finds himself picking up the paint set ready to mix the colors by shaking it, or holding the brush completely still against the person’s skin, expecting color to just come out of the end of it. Keeping a careful eye on his tip jar, he knows he will walk away from this with three hundred dollars, at least.

“I owe you one,” Levi says to Erwin later. The sun is going down and the parents have already dragged their kids away to head home to play in proper pools, or in Isabel and Farlan’s case, a bathtub.

“Does this mean you’ll be my tattooist?” Erwin asks.

“We are definitely going to need to talk about it some more, but yes. I’ll ink whatever the hell you want.”

**Author's Note:**

> What kind of a title is that? I made it up last second GOSH.  
> I don't even remember where the inspiration for this came from but HERE IT IS.
> 
> Comments always appreciated!


End file.
